I just left a crowded theater showing “Toy Story 5,” a movie that is already a huge hit and the highest earning film so far in the charming series loved by audiences. This one has a biting angle that we all know to be true.
Not only does digital obsession threaten the childhoods of kids; it even threatens this movie franchise, which has featured all the now-famous and very physical toys of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, Rex, Bo Peep, and Jessie, the yodeling cowgirl who has the main role in this film.
In fighting back against the screen hegemony, Pixar is not only calling for the redemption of kids; it is striking a blow for the subject of the movie itself.
In the story, the child Bonnie gets a Lilypad tablet—after years of begging for one—despite her parents’ incredulity. Sure enough, it immediately starts competing for her attention. She neglects her toys and even in passing approves having her father put them all in storage. The toys have to figure out their place in a world of screens, social apps, and “digital friends.”
It contains many powerful moments but I want to highlight one scene in particular when the tablet first arrives. Bonnie has never had a digital device before.
When Bonnie gets Lilypad, her countenance entirely changes. Her face and eyes drooped, instantly losing interest in the world around her. Instead of being engaged with the outside world and parents, she is sucked into the digital vortex, staying up late to play silly games, waking up early to engage with her new digital “friends,” being late to dinner, wholly neglecting her old toys and old life.
She is changed, all from a technology. But the tech is not all bad. One of her new online friends invites her to a sleepover. Excitingly, she shows up and no one is talking to each other. Instead, at this supposed party, the kids are all playing on their stupid tablets. She further notices that everyone in the neighborhood is doing the same.
We don’t know precisely what happens here but Bonnie comes home deeply depressed, feeling more friendless than ever. Her new friends turn out to be unsatisfying. The old world of toys and real friends is being replaced by invasive tablets that are robbing kids of the good life.
Then something goes terribly wrong. The old toys conspire to send a picture of themselves as a way of letting Bonnie know that they are lost and in need of love. This message is released on all platforms including that which her new fake friends read. They shame her as a crying baby who needs her toys.
She feels devastated and deeply sad.
There is no one raised in this world who has not experienced something like that. You post the wrong thing. Someone makes fun of a picture of you. Everyone seems to be talking about you and it feels like the world just discovered how awful, unfashionable, stupid, and pathetic you are.
There is an all-over-body feeling of chills that comes from blood shifting. It’s called humiliation. I’ve felt that before if I’ve made a mistake in an article and someone calls it out. It’s a terrible feeling. I know it and it mostly stems from illusion, the sense that everyone is somehow looking down on you.
Nothing in real life can compare with the false sense that the world is laughing at you. Only digital media can manage to impart this level of shame.
A few days later, Bonnie shows up to another house where her old toys are. The nice girl there wants to be her friend but already Bonnie has forgotten how to engage. She lowers her chin and can barely speak. She mutters rather than speaks. She has lost all confidence in herself. It’s like a new spirit has inhabited her. Her mother worries.
Finally Bonnie confesses what happened. Her mother completely understands. Even the tablet feels awful (the toys are volitional remember) and throws itself away by jumping into a donation box.
As the plot unfolds, all the toys work together to recover Bonnie’s sense of herself and connect her with a new real friend. The plot works and the kids recover their own spirit and adventure, imagination, and real-world fun.
The movie doesn’t go full “technology is evil, go live in the woods” mode. Instead, it shows a nuanced warning: screens and apps aren’t inherently bad, but when they become the default way kids connect and play, something important gets lost—imagination, face-to-face friendship, the messiness of real play, and the role of physical toys and, by extension, real-world interaction.
The film gives the Lilypad tablet some legitimate upsides, helping Bonnie with social anxiety, and connecting with other kids, but it also shows the downsides without being preachy. The toys aren’t trying to destroy tech. They’re trying to find their place alongside it.
That balance keeps it from feeling like a grumpy rant and makes the message land better, especially for parents and kids watching together. The lesson is important for kids and adults: tech gives quick dopamine hits and convenience, but it can quietly shift what “normal” play and connection feel like, until the old joys start to fade.
Adults desperately need this message too. The idea of obsessively tracking sleep, steps, diets, and running all this through a wearable filter, is utterly preposterous and likely generates enough anxiety to lead to ill health. As for tracking followers or likes on social media, just don’t go there. None of it is real.
As I was leaving the theater, I noticed a family with a child the age of Bonnie. I asked what everyone thought about the film. The parents were thrilled and the child was especially delighted, smiling from ear to ear! There we go. There is some hope that this film works to impart the right lesson.
One wonders: is the counterrevolution here? More and more classrooms are banning phones and reporting wonderful results. More and more experts are expressing grave regret that they went so hard in getting all the kids laptops and tablets. They are also being banned.
The same is happening in high school and college. At commencements this year, any speaker who mentioned the glories of artificial intelligence was routinely booed. This is all wonderful, so far as I’m concerned.
Digital media is fantastic at flooding the world with information. It’s terrible, however, at imparting learning, discipline, judgment, and wisdom. It’s made it super easy to seem to know something but crowded out serious thinking and learning.
I worry that the effect is even worse, as becomes clear from the change in Bonnie’s countenance. It seems to shut the brain down. That’s fine from time to time but if this becomes the standard, genuine teaching and socialization comes to an end. What we see from Gen Z is a lost generation, confused about nearly everything but singularly focused on appearances of social media.
To be an “influencer,” whatever that means, is listed among the top ambitions for the under-30 demographic. This is dramatically detached from the real life of people and the path to authentic success and happiness. After all, in the influencer world, everything is perfect. It’s theater, not reality.
To be sure, I was a massive champion of all these technologies when they came out. I had not considered the secondary effects. I had not realized that by making the appearance of knowledge so easy, it would deplete the mental muscle of thinking and discovering. With the loss of reading and the plummeting of scores, and the distorted sense of what the good life actually is, there is more at stake. It could be civilization itself.
The film doesn’t mention this policy in particular but it is in the background. The adults were cruel and we are now surrounded by the carnage all around us. This wonderful movie begins the long process of admitting the terrible error and helping to repair the damage.
Take the kids to see it. Take the adults too. We have our work cut out for us.
